Peter Gabriel
Passion (Music For the Last Temptation of Christ) (1989)

review by: Matthew Scrivner
Date: 4/5/01

This album haunts me.

Despite it's subject matter, or perhaps because of it, the sound of this entire work is dangerously erotic, sexual. Think longing and lust of summer nights in a desert where the wind blows hot and the sky is a dry field of rippling stars. Yet the sexuality of the sound comes across differently in each track – sometimes sullen, often quietly violent, occasionally empty and remorseful. There's this darkness to the music here that sort of swallows the listener up, like being caught in a sandstorm sweeping across dead dunes at 3am.

And the genius of this album is not Gabriel himself (indeed there is not a single song with lyrics here--only ambient background vocals), nor is it the inspiration provided by Scorsese 's mediocre adaptation of the Kazantzakis novel for which the songs were originally written. In fact it's less a Peter Gabriel album than than a collective work between Gabriel and world musicians like Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Shankar, Youssou N'Dour, and Mahmoud Tabrizi Zadeh. Admittedly, I myself have never heard any of these guys, but they're incredible at what they do because the result of such collaboration is musical techniques, rhythms, and especially instruments that you are not likely to hear elsewhere.

Even if you are a member of the population that objects to the film – and therefore the soundtrack – for religious reasons, this album is worth listening to. I know this is a forum for music reviews, not a rant factory or an book review newsgroup. Yet I suggest that if you are one of the folk who object to the film, and/or the music for religious reasons, you should pick up Kazantzakis' novel 'The Last Temptation of Christ.' There are greater theosophical issues that may make you see the film (and therefore also, this album) not as immoral, but as beautiful, haunting, and simply true.